Critical literacy for a posthuman world: When people read, and become, with machines

Abstract Computational objects (eg, algorithms, bots, surveillance technology and data) have become increasingly present in our daily lives and are consequential for our changing relations to texts, multimodality and identity. Yet, our current theories of literacy, and especially the prevalence of mediational and representational perspectives, are inadequate to account for these changing relations. What are the implications for critical literacy education when it takes seriously computational agents that interact, produce and process texts? While such work is only beginning in education, scholars in other fields are increasingly writing about how AI and algorithmic mediation are changing the landscape of online intra‐action, and business strategies and tactics for working with AI are advancing far ahead of critical literacy education. Drawing on our own and others’ research into non‐human actors online, and building on posthuman theories of networks, heterogeneous actants and the assemblage, in this conceptual paper, we sketch some of the forms of critical consciousness that media education might provide in this new mixed landscape. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic AI is a hot topic in education and in public discourse, but critical literacy theories have not sufficiently accounted for how AI and computational agents change what it means to be “critically literate.” Technology is an important force in shaping (and is also shaped by) literacy practices and identity. Corporate actors have an enormous influence on the texts we read and write, but this influence is often hidden. What this paper adds We bridge between critical literacy studies and posthumanist theory to conceptualize critical posthuman literacy. We argue for re‐imagining what texts, multimodality and identity are and do in the age of AI. We pose new questions of our texts and ourselves, informed by posthuman critical literacy. Implications for practice and/or policy Today’s readers and composers must be able to identify and interrogate networks of computational and human agents that permeate literacy practices. Beyond identifying and understanding computational agents, posthuman critical literacy necessitates that people can actively build more ethical assemblages with computational agents.